"And what becomes of them?"
"Those who have money spend a vacuous existence in the pursuit of strenuous idleness; those who have no money and some remains of self-respect occasionally emigrate, as I have done. And that brings me to my point, Mr. Legion. I have been long enough in your remarkable city to understand that there is a welcome for the man who can do things, and for no one else. I don't flatter myself that I can do anything of much account, but I am willing to work, and I believe I am willing to learn. To be very plain, I need employment, and I ask you to give it me."
"Well, I like your honesty," said Legion. "But I think better of you than you do of yourself. A man of your splendid education must be able to write. Now, I'll tell you what—you go away and write me a descriptive sketch of your friend Vickars, and if it's the right kind of stuff I'll use it in the papers."
This seemed a feasible project at least. He went away and wrote the essay upon Vickars, and because he wrote in a spirit of genuine love and admiration, he wrote well.
On the following Sunday Legion invited him to his house in New Jersey, where he had the opportunity of making the acquaintance of the Legion family. His most immediate impression was of a Legion shorn of his beams, so to speak: no longer the arbiter of fame for struggling authors, but a singularly humble individual, whose authority in his own household was dubious and disputed. The real ruler of the household appeared to be that exceedingly smart boy, Ulysses E. Legion, whose self-confidence would have done credit to an aged diplomat whose voice had for half a century swayed the councils of kings and statesmen. He talked incessantly, making no scruple to express his views on a great variety of subjects, in such a way as to indicate that his father was mistaken in most of his opinions. At the dinner-table this young gentleman advised his father how to carve the joint, and directed him with unblushing precision toward the special tit-bits which he himself preferred. To see the great literary agent humbly obeying these directions, or listening with extreme docility to the opinions of this young patriarch of twelve, was a striking revelation of the amiability of the American parent. Of the qualities revealed in the child perhaps the less said the better. Yet it was to this young gentleman that Arthur owed a considerable advance in the esteem of Mr. Legion. It is one of the unpleasing characteristics of the American house to dispense with doors between the various living-rooms, and thus many things may be overheard that are not meant for general circulation. The parlour in Mr. Legion's house being divided from the dining-room by nothing more substantial than a flimsy curtain, Arthur could not avoid hearing a conversation which took place between the father and son after dinner.
"Say pop," said the boy, "is he a Britisher?"
"Why, yes, he comes from London."
"We always licked the Britishers, didn't we?"
To which the father replied with the popular mendacity which is taught in all American histories, "Of course, Americans have never been defeated."
"Well, I thought he was American. He looks like an American, any way."